AZAHAR Project: free applications for mobile communication to improve autism.

Azahar Project, developed by the Group for Autism and Learning Disabilities at the Robotics Institute at the University of Valencia, with the momentum of the Orange Foundation, aims to develop a set of communication applications, leisure and planning, implemented at mobile phone, help improve the quality of life and independence of people with autism. The applications contain pictograms, images and sounds completely adaptable to each user, having used photos of people themselves and their families, and their voices.

All applications, as well as teaching guides that offer guidance to use them are available free on the project website: www.proyectoazahar.org.

Azahar is one of the first approaches to use of applications based on mobile telephony developed specifically for people with autism or other pervasive developmental disorders. And is that mobile phone use as a tool of communication and planning was considered to be optimal for today, an object of widespread deployment.

Azahar is based on Java technology, specifically on J2ME, providing a platform regardless of operating system they run on. For now, it has done for computers running Windows XP and Windows Vista, and for mobile devices that implement Windows Mobile 5.0 or higher, such as PDA's, mobile phones, etc..

During the development phase have followed the trials and user tests in collaboration with associations and Autism Autism Ávila Burgos. The project was also supported by the Ministry of Industry, Tourism and Trade through its Plan Avanza, and for free distribution on the Internet adds to the same participation Adapt Foundation.

In the first phase of Azahar have seen the light, in autumn 2009, the first five applications.

-The Communicator HOLA offers pictograms to people with autism may point to communicate something. So, when you click on them also heard pre-recorded words or phrases. To design the software interface has been taken into account current knowledge about the communication in autism intervention, especially systems using alternative communication such as communication system Picture Exchange through which children learn to develop the communicative intention to communicate through a series of strategies and teaching methods with which the communicator is compatible HOLA.

-The Messaging application is closely related with HI, since it allows the same functionality (communication) but this time by sending messages between phones with pictograms. On this occasion the user with autism (and / or intellectual disabilities), and choose the glyph or sequence, you must also choose who you want to send it, counting with a list of photographs of their loved ones.

-The mp3 player called Music enables people who have been unable to learn to drive a conventional mp3 player will also have opportunity to hear music in an accessible format. This application offers the possibility of introducing songs accompanied by images that appear on the screen of the user with autism and those with only a finger touch, serve to start listening to their favorite songs.

- PERSONAL GUIDE- The application aims to facilitate the communication of people with autism, this time facilitating their presentation to others. This pictogram can be introduced for important aspects for the person, as their tastes and preferences and any other specific information about themselves that helps them to appear before those who know them first.

- "TIC-TAC watches help much for those who have not been able to learn the concept of time and use timekeepers, who often have great difficulty in waiting situations or in any activity that does not know how long you have. This is a set of clocks (of stick downward, circular or sand) that can be tailored to each person and situation, being fully programmable.

info: Fundación Orange
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